Paul Helm on Piper

Paul Helm offers a gentle criticism of Piper's "Christian Hedonism" here.

I think one problem with Piper's approach is that it does not deal with piety covenantally. Whereas Scripture, and the Reformed confessions, teach that piety is born out of the gratitude that is created in the heart and mind of the redeemed sinner by virtue of being made right with God, Piper proposes that piety is born out of an "appreciation" of the excellencies of God that is not so much mediated through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments but through an immediate, predominantly emotional, awareness of God's perfections.

The Heidelberg Catechism states:

Question 86. Since then we are delivered from our misery, merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?

Answer: Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by his blood, also renews us by his Holy Spirit, after his own image; that so we may testify, by the whole of our conduct, our gratitude to God for his blessings, and that he may be praised by us; also, that every one may be assured in himself of his faith, by the fruits thereof; and that, by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ.

The neo-Platonism is as evident in Piper as it is in his hero, Jonathan Edwards.

Irrationalism, QIRE, and Challies

In this recent blog post, mega-blogger Tim Challies reports of another reason for why he left a confessionally Reformed church in favor of an Anabaptist one, this time the rationale being that the former did not have a strong "evangelistic" suit, born, he claims, out of a seemingly deeply-ingrained distaste for the unregenerate.

While his criticism may indeed be valid, his reaction of going from the context of strong, historical, and Reformed confessionalism to the converse does not share the same quality. In fact, I would say that it is irrational. If irrationalism is the claim that all that is true are the particulars around us, and that there are no universals that dictate upon how particulars operate, then Challies' subsequent embracing of more "feely," experience-driven Anabaptism fits the bill of irrationalism very nicely.

While it is possible for him to assert that the confessionally Reformed faith lacks the quality of "universal" (archetypal), based on biblical theological grounds, it is more likely that the reason he "jumped ship" is that, experientially, he was not being satisfied. This reminds me of Dr. R. Scott Clark's QIRE (Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience):

"QIRE is then the practical dimension of QIRC. It denies that God mediates His interaction with man through the means of grace, namely, the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments. It posits that man is able to connect with God apart from the institutions that God has ordained in Scripture, thereby blurring the Creator-creature distinction. It is easy to spot more glaring instances of this error in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, but subtle variations also occur in the spiritual disciplines advocacies of many notable figures that are common in supposedly Reformed circles." (Underdog Theology, BOOK REVIEW: Recovering the Reformed Confession (Our Theology, Piety, and Practice) by R. Scott Clark—Chapter I, 'Whatever Became of Reformed Theology, Piety, and Practice?' PART 1)

While Challies' regression from Reformed confessionalism to Anabaptism is lamentable, the blessing that his wisdom has afforded many, through his blog and books, is definitely laudable.